Pool of Radiance_ Ruins of Myth Drannor - Carrie Bebris [104]
Kestrel and the others observed the scene from the corner of a gallery that ran the length of three walls. As they watched, cultists arrived through the smaller gates and entered the large one. A few, like the fighter they’d just overheard, stopped to talk with the cult sorcerers standing guard. From the conversations, she surmised that the small gates all led to points outside Myth Drannor, while the main gate led to the pool cavern.
She gazed at the smaller gates longingly. Beyond lay the outside world. What an easy thing it would be to sneak away from the party and dart through one of those gates, out of Myth Drannor and away from this impossible quest. A few short days ago, she might have done that very thing.
But-independent of the fact that the cult’s plan meant no safe place existed to run to-she found she could not abandon her companions now. She felt a responsibility to them and to their mission. Her mission. The fate of the world as they knew it rested in their hands. For once in her life, she was part of something greater than herself. She would not back away.
When they were finished, when they had defeated the cult and destroyed the pool, then they could use those smaller gates to leave Myth Drannor. They could go home. She could collect her cache-perhaps even a reward from Elminster-and set herself up for a life of ease. After all this, she’d earned it.
With new conviction, she assessed the situation once more. Somehow, they had to pass through that main gate. “Ghleanna, perhaps now would be a good time for those remaining invisibility spells,” she whispered. Corran, Athan, and Durwyn remained unseen. “Cloak yourself and Faeril-I can sneak past the guards.”
Ghleanna, her clawed face partially healed by a blue-glow moss potion, shook her head. “I have developed a modified invisibility spell of my own. We can all pass through unseen.”
“First we must close the other gates,” Corran said, “to stop the influx of cultists.”
“If we do that, how will we ever get home?” Kestrel wished she could see Corran’s face and not have this conversation with a disembodied voice. “After we stop Mordrayn, and…” She caught the expression in Ghleanna and Faeril’s eyes.
None of them were going home.
“You’ve been saying all along that this quest is suicidal,” Ghleanna said gently. “I think we must face the possibility that in destroying the pool, we may also-”
“No!” Kestrel shook her head vehemently. “I won’t accept that.” She couldn’t accept it-her survival instinct was too strong. “I know what I said before, but I don’t intend to die a martyr’s death. We are going to confront Mordrayn and the dracolich, we are going to annihilate that damnable pool, and then we are walking out of here alive. Do you hear me? Alive. All of us.”
Her new-found optimism surprised Ghleanna and Faeril. In truth, it surprised her, but she had worked hard to get to this point, fought harder than she’d ever fought for anything in her life. No one-not Mordrayn, not Pelendralaar, not every member of the whole despicable cult-was going to rob her of telling this tale in her old age.
A strong, unseen hand touched her shoulder. “Let us leave one gate open, then,” Athan said, “to go home.”
Ghleanna’s forked lightning bolt stunned the sorcerer standing guard and collapsed one of the small gates in a crackling implosion of electricity. All eyes turned to the bolt’s point of origin just in time to see a second bolt race forth to disable the gate opposite and shock that guard as well. The bolts seemed to spring from thin air-Ghleanna’s improved version of Jarial’s spell enabled her to remain invisible while spellcasting.
Kestrel rejoiced in the gates’ easy destruction. At last, events were going their way. All that remained was to quickly dart through the main portal and into the pool cavern, then collapse the portal behind them. The party could worry later about how to return to the great hall to exit through the remaining gate.